Hello from Vienna!
The city of the waltz, symphonies and great music of all kinds.   We saw many musicians carrying cases of all shapes and sizes.  The most impressive was a young lady with a bass on her back!  

We left Linz after breakfast (shocking to some was the natural tasting fresh yogurt - quite a surprise on your cereal!)    We drove through  beautiful green fields  with freshly plowed fallow fields in between.  Beautiful church steeples adorned the little towns we passed.  We even passed a particularly large Abbey!

Vienna has a large circle street that goes around their central plaza - something like the Washington DC mall with Smithsonians and monuments etc.   Today most of our time spent there was searching out lunch - tomorrow we will tour a little more.   I personally ended up in the oldest viennese cafe on the Ringestrasse and had spinach strudel with arugala salad - less than 10 dolllars!

We reunited and visited a house that was believed to have been Beethoven's but was found not to be but represented the style of house he lived in for a while.   It had a cute little museum and heard a letter he wrote in 1802 read aloud!  His hearing was getting worse and it was agony for him - yet he was proud that he would not commit suicide  - sad.   He lived many years after this.

One of the most entertaining moments was waiting for the bus to pick us up - someone started to "waltz"   soon those few who knew how were teaching others and generally having a grand time!  Happily I was part of this - sadly I took no pictures !
Hopefully others who did take a picture or too will post one!

Our concert followed in the Engish SDA Vienna church.  It was gloriously international with many different cultures represented!  Especially the Philippines!  The church was small and I only got pictures of the handbells.  (Last night even in a big sanctuary it seemed to distract some people with the camera clicking )   Enjoy them tonight!  

Supper came later with pansit, sticky rice, salad and Austrian desserts too!   They are a happy church and have a great music program themselves.  

Heading to a local hotel the kids got quite slap happy and started singing show tunes uproariously - so fun!  We are headed to bed early as we are quite tired.

Tomorrow we will site see in Vienna - then head to "Gratz "  a university town to perform.   Thank you all for supporting Thunderbird Adventist Academy music scholars!  

P.s.   - someone sent a special message in one of the pictures - can you find it?